2000 years later...
“Vinegrasp! You there?”
I sighed. Shadow’s weekly hate mail was coming. And-
“Why haven’t you got us out!? You’re not trying!”
I tuned her rage out. Didn’t she know that it was hard on me too? I didn’t know how long we had been here for, but it seemed like eternity. I occasionally wondered about the Shifters. Were there any left? What were we remembered as? Tyrants? Torturers? Worse? I didn’t know, and would never know. I was never breaking out.
Days and years had trickled by, and each minute felt like a day. When you belong to a race that can live for a very long time, boredom is a major issue.
Something awoke me from my normal trance, or as most people call it, ‘spacing out.’
I puzzled out what it was, and a huge, maniacal grin appeared on my face. “Shadow?” “Yes?” She asked, annoyed. “I think I know how we’re getting out.”
............. .
(Switching viewpoints!)
I had just discovered these really cool ruins in the middle of the woods. Not knowing it would be the worst day of my life, of course.
It wasn’t much, just a few mossy, well-cut stones and a red glass ball that looked like it had seen better days. I ignored the rocks and walked toward the sphere. Upon inspection, it looked like it had runes on it. None I had ever seen before.
I hit it, and it made a slight pinging sound.
“Huh.” I thought aloud.
“I wonder if Amelia seen this before. It is in her woods after all.”
As I poked and prodded, I didn’t notice a small shadow go into my ear…
............. .
“You in?”
An awkard moment of silence passed.
“Yah.”
“Who’s there?” The queen yelled.
“Come out!”
She didn’t notice a small shadow enter her ear.
“I’m good.”
The queen had stopped struggling. She stopped and shakily moved. Then she laughed, but in Shadow’s voice.
“I’ll come back soon.”
My friend left me in the ruins, and either I was going delusional or she was skipping.
I grinned.
“Getting Out- Check!”
............. .
Elves are possibly the hardest race to understand on this world. They have a long and sadistic history, including murder and, unknown by most, genocide. They directly destroyed the proud city of Exodius, and its inhabitants as well. Among these numbers of the dead are Shifter-Queen Shaylin, and the Queenling Vinegrasp, though her body was never found… -From Queen Amelia’s Royal Library.
.............
“I, for one, am officially CONFUZZLED!”
I paced along the floors of the throne, making some of the tiles scraped.
“Alisia has never been this aggressive before!”
Dentar rolled his eyes for about the two-hundredth time.
“What is wrong with her!”
Dentar hummed tunelessly, obviously ignoring me.
I glared at him.
“Oh, you’re so helpful.”
He grinned.
“Why, thank you!”
“Gah!”
“How ‘bout we worry about something else.”
“NO! Yes… No… Yes...”
He grabbed my arm.
“Let’s go to the library.”
I brightened up, my eyes glittering.
“YES!”
He hardly ever agreed to go there. I loved everything about it, climbing up onto rickety ladders, opening old books and turning their dusty pages… that would definitely distract me. My friend knew me well.
The gold-inlaid door leading to the library creaked open. I breathed in the air and dust, sighing.
“Oh, glory.”
I practically skipped in, and ran to the nearest ladder. I grabbed onto the bar, and nearly fell as I climbed.
“Let me see… what should I rea- eh?”
My eyes saw a book I had never read. I picked it up gingery and brushed off ancient dust. “Spell Compendium… sounds different.”
I carefully turned the cover, and began to read a random page aloud.
“Dear reader, the next page is my life’s work, and a spell that has only been used once, Rosethorn. When I first used this spell, I killed my brother. If you manage to use this, use with caution. It has already dirtied my name… Rosethorn essentially kills all life forms within fifty feet of the caster.”
I nearly dropped the book at that. I knew of no spell that had that power. Yet I continued. “The stages are fairly simple. First, large, thorny rose vines of about five feet in diameter grow out of the ground. The vines then track down any breathing mammalian, avian, or reptilian form of life in the aforementioned area.”
I was officially curious.
“Dentar, come see!”
He strolled over.
“What?”
“Read this.”
He followed instructions, and his eyes bulged.
“Egad!”
“We, obviously, have to find out who wrote this.”
I looked on the cover, only to be met by runes for an author.
“Dentar, can you read this?”
He stared at it.
“Nope.”
“Great. Call Narsissa and Tamia. We’ve got work to do.”
...................
Vinegrasp had quite decided that she did not like not knowing who the people in charge were. She had a sinking feeling that they wouldn’t agree to her sentiments of “I have to kill Tavar Silverbow’s heir.” Actually, she wasn’t even sure what family was in charge of the throne, or if they even had a throne. For all she knew, the elves could have a democracy!
But that was very unlikely.
“Vinegrasp!”
She turned to her friend.
“What is it Shadow?”
The blue-eyed face that the Shifter was controlling scowled.
“I TOLD you, that’s not my name!”
“What is it then? Shadownight? A bit redundant, don’t you think?”
What’s-her-name looked at her with utter ‘Did-you-really-just-say-something-that-dumb?’ in her eyes.
“It’s actually ShadowBLIGHT, thanks for listening.”
Vinegrasp frowned.
“Look, I’m sleep deprived and I don’t have coffee or even know if the world still makes coffee and good gods I don’t want to think about that. Give me a break.”
“Fine. Any way, good news! I found out that the current elven leader is a complete idiot and relies on her general to do the decision making. The best part? The general’s last name just happens to be-”
“Silverbow!” Vinegrasp cheered.
“Yah! So I guess we don’t have to scour the globe for one person, cause I was kinda dreading that.”
“Yah, same here.”
They had a moment of awkward silence.
Finally, Vinegrasp spoke.
“We really have to get a better secret base. This place is a wreck.”
“Yah.”
.................
To be continued! (When I get around to it....)
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Before I begin, your prologue is formatted awkwardly so look into that. Also make sure we need it, all of it. Scenes or backstory which is currently irrelevant or can be introduced or implied later, should well be introduced later. Focus on the now and the protagonist, everything else can follow later.
With that out of the way, this piece is also formatted awkwardly. It’s nice to have *** or …. as a break, but this should be used sparingly, very, very sparingly. If you are using it too often it means your transitions need to be worked on. I also see you use it to separate out “quotes” aka exposition, and all I have to say is: don’t. Blocks of exposition are bad enough because they stand out and break up the flow, and underlining them makes it even worse. If you have a block of exposition, chances are it is either unnecessary or can be introduced differently. Show it instead, and if it can’t be shown or implied through your text/action, chop it up and weave it in pieces. Make it unnoticeable, seamless.
Work on your dialogue tags.
So your main concerns should be formatting and flow. Work on those transitions, fatten up your prose, get rid of the breaks, and fix up your dialogue. And I underline dialogue. It is possibly the trickiest part in writing and you need to pay it extra attention. Read on editing and formatting of dialogue. Also read it outloud and see if it’s natural. And finally exposition, be extra careful with exposition.
Hey! IamTraunt here to review!
So, I'm sorry that I haven't read the first chapter, so I may be a little rusty, but I will try my best to understand and make corrections for you!
Nitpicking Time!
This should be split up. Here:
I puzzled out what it was, and a huge, maniacal grin appeared on my face. “Shadow?”
"Yes?” She asked, annoyed.
“I think I know how we’re getting out.”
This isn't right. I know your trying to show a space in time, so why not put:
'***' like they usually do in books.
So I was thinking, if your changing Viewpoints, why not put the characters name in bold at the top of their passage?
At this point I was very confused. Even if I read the first chapter I think I wouldn't still. I would advise putting the names of who is speaking.
Should be 'in this world'.
I don't think someone /would say this in real life. They'd say 'confused' but not 'confuzzled'.
The exclamation mark should be a question mark.
Okay, so I hope this has helped! You have a very interesting story going on here. Very perplexing and humorous characters, a good storyline, intriguing plot and your pace is smooth and your flow smooth. You seem to be developing your story well. Good job!
Keep up the good work!